Taiwan's young, messy democracy may not be easy on the eyes, but it's made
important progress in recent years.

May 14-21, 2007 issue
- South Korea isn't the only democratic success story
in Asia these days. The competition isn't just coming from Japan; it's
Taiwan, rarely recognized as an independent state, that's making some of the
best progress. Since holding its first free presidential elections in 1996,
Taiwan has most often been associated with the fistfights that occasionally
break out in its fractious legislature.

But under the surface, the island
has been quietly fortifying its political system. Recent surveys by the
research group Asian Barometer rank Taiwan third, after Japan and South
Korea, on support for liberal democratic values such as civilian rule and an
independent judiciary. And its citizens support free speech more strongly
than those of any other surveyed country.

Recent reforms virtually guarantee that the country's politics will grow
even more pluralistic. In 2003, citizens were granted the power of
referendum. In 2005, they were given final say via plebiscite over
constitutional amendments, and the same round of reform will create
single-member legislative districts rather than the current multi-member
ones. That move is expected to create a more stable two-party system; the
first election under the new rules is in December.

Perhaps most remarkable is the way the judiciary has become a check on the
other powers. Last fall, President Chen Shui-bian's wife was charged with
corruption, as was a former opposition leader. Courts have also convicted
Chen's son-in-law and one of his top aides. Such high-level cases were once
impossible to imagine. Despite grumblings, the country's formerly rotten
political class has bowed to the rule of law. The high-profile charges
notwithstanding, last year Taiwan ranked 34th out of 163 countries in
Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index-second only to
Japan among Asia's free countries.

That's not to say the country isn't still suffering from growing pains. The
government is an awkward hybrid of a presidential and parliamentary system-a
problem it hopes to fix with further constitutional revisions. Gridlock is
the legislature's default setting. And the island is bitterly split over its
identity (is it Chinese or Taiwanese?), China policy, and how to deal with
the vestiges of almost 40 years of authoritarian rule-key questions its
young democracy has been unable to answer.

Case in point: the recent
controversy over the government's moves to pull down-and, in one case,
dismember-the remaining statues of Chiang Kai-shek, who established the
Kuomintang's autocratic rule over Taiwan after fleeing the mainland in 1949.
Democratic consolidation doesn't make for as good TV as public brawling, of
course. Thanks in part to the island's freewheeling media, Taiwan's
legislative meltdowns still dominate the limelight. But while political life
here may look chaotic, in the ways that matter it's growing more stable all
the time.